(Reuters) - The Voyager 1 space probe has reached the edge of the solar system, extending its record for being the most distant man-made object in space.

According to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the spacecraft is sending back data to Earth showing a sharp increase in charged particles that originate from beyond the solar system.

"Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system," NASA said in the statement.

Voyager 1, along with its sister spacecraft Voyager 2, was launched in 1977 and is now about 18 billion kilometers from the Sun. It is moving at a speed of about 17 km per second and it currently takes 16 hours and 38 minutes for data to reach NASA's network on Earth. Voyager 2 is about 15 billion kilometers from the Sun.

Between them, the probes have explored all the giant planets of the solar system; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, as well as 48 of their moons.

They both carry a greeting for any extraterrestrial life they may bump into, a phonograph record and 12-inch gold-plated copper disk with sounds and images of life and culture on Earth selected by a group chaired by the famous space scientist Carl Sagan.

The charged particles hitting Voyager 1 originate from stars that have exploded elsewhere in the galaxy. They have been steadily rising as it approaches interstellar space but that trend has become sharper in recent months.

"From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month."

The exact position of the edge of the solar system is unclear but another indicator that Voyager has entered interstellar space is expected to be a change in the direction of the magnetic fields around the space craft. NASA scientists are looking at data from the craft to see if this predicted change has occurred.

"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Stone. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."

The plutonium power sources on the Voyager probes are designed to last until 2025. When they die, the probes will keep hurtling through space towards other stars in the Milky Way but they will no longer transmit data back to Earth.

(Reuters) - The Voyager 1 space probe has reached the edge of the solar system, extending its record for being the most distant man-made object in space.

According to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the spacecraft is sending back data to Earth showing a sharp increase in charged particles that originate from beyond the solar system.

"Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system," NASA said in the statement.

Voyager 1, along with its sister spacecraft Voyager 2, was launched in 1977 and is now about 18 billion kilometers from the Sun. It is moving at a speed of about 17 km per second and it currently takes 16 hours and 38 minutes for data to reach NASA's network on Earth. Voyager 2 is about 15 billion kilometers from the Sun.

Between them, the probes have explored all the giant planets of the solar system; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, as well as 48 of their moons.

They both carry a greeting for any extraterrestrial life they may bump into, a phonograph record and 12-inch gold-plated copper disk with sounds and images of life and culture on Earth selected by a group chaired by the famous space scientist Carl Sagan.

The charged particles hitting Voyager 1 originate from stars that have exploded elsewhere in the galaxy. They have been steadily rising as it approaches interstellar space but that trend has become sharper in recent months.

"From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month."

The exact position of the edge of the solar system is unclear but another indicator that Voyager has entered interstellar space is expected to be a change in the direction of the magnetic fields around the space craft. NASA scientists are looking at data from the craft to see if this predicted change has occurred.

"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Stone. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."

The plutonium power sources on the Voyager probes are designed to last until 2025. When they die, the probes will keep hurtling through space towards other stars in the Milky Way but they will no longer transmit data back to Earth.

Pasadena, CA – Data from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased.

Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion – that humanity’s first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.

This artist’s concept shows NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system’s frontier.”

The data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network on Earth detail the number of charged particles measured by the two High Energy telescopes aboard the 34-year-old spacecraft. These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.

“From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering,” said Stone. “More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7th, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month.”

This marked increase is one of a triad of data sets which need to make significant swings of the needle to indicate a new era in space exploration. The second important measure from the spacecraft’s two telescopes is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. While there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off precipitously, which could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.

The final data set that Voyager scientists believe will reveal a major change is the measurement in the direction of the magnetic field lines surrounding the spacecraft. While Voyager is still within the heliosphere, these field lines run east-west. When it passes into interstellar space, the team expects Voyager will find that the magnetic field lines orient in a more north-south direction. Such analysis will take weeks, and the Voyager team is currently crunching the numbers of its latest data set.

“When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old,” said Stone. “Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be — or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it.”

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is more than 9.1 billion miles (14.7 billion kilometers) away from the sun. Both are operating as part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission, an extended mission to explore the solar system outside the neighborhood of the outer planets and beyond. NASA’s Voyagers are the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.

The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

In 2006, NASA dispatched an ambassador to the planetary frontier. The New Horizons spacecraft is now halfway between Earth and Pluto, on approach for a dramatic flight past the icy planet and its moons in July 2015.

After 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, on a historic voyage that has already taken it over the storms and around the moons of Jupiter, New Horizons will shed light on new kinds of worlds we've only just discovered on the outskirts of the solar system.

I can't fantom a billion miles, what is that, really? It's amazing how much "junk" ( I say that affectionately) we have out there.

While Voyager is still chugging along after 30 years trying to get out of out solar system, let's take a step back and see us in relation to just our own galaxy.

As you can see, we are not even a spec of dust in our own galaxy. And our galaxy is but one of 1.5 MILLION known galaxies.

Amazing. And the estimate is in the billions.

The human adventure is will go on for time indefinite

The wonders of the universe are so amazing and mind boggling. That's one of the reasons why i can't understand the arrogance of man. The vastness of our own galaxy should humble us, and its not even the biggest known, let alone the vastness of the universe. Now they're talking about the Multiverse !

I hope the human race makes it to the point where we can space travel(beyond the moon), but i doubt it. Were either going to be destroyed by a asteroid or by nuclear war.

I'm going to say again, science is not politics or religion. It's messed up that this is where all these threads end up (this one may have been started here, not sure). Maybe we need a sciences forum. Or maybe they should just be left to live in General Discussion. Like, would a moderator move my Puffin Cam thread to P&R? No. So why move something about space there?

I'm going to say again, science is not politics or religion. It's messed up that this is where all these threads end up (this one may have been started here, not sure). Maybe we need a sciences forum. Or maybe they should just be left to live in General Discussion. Like, would a moderator move my Puffin Cam thread to P&R? No. So why move something about space there?

Anyways, the voyager spacecraft won't leave our solar sysetem for thousands of years. It's barely even reached the beginning of the edge. The edge of the solar system is almost a light-year away from the sun. Alpha Centauri is just under 4, and it would take 70 thousand-ish years for Voyager to get there. Devide that by 3-something, and we're talking thousands and thousands of years just to leave our solar system.

I'm going to say again, science is not politics or religion. It's messed up that this is where all these threads end up (this one may have been started here, not sure). Maybe we need a sciences forum. Or maybe they should just be left to live in General Discussion. Like, would a moderator move my Puffin Cam thread to P&R? No. So why move something about space there?

Steps off rickety ass soap box.

What difference does it make where they end up as long as we can find them?

I'm going to say again, science is not politics or religion. It's messed up that this is where all these threads end up (this one may have been started here, not sure). Maybe we need a sciences forum. Or maybe they should just be left to live in General Discussion. Like, would a moderator move my Puffin Cam thread to P&R? No. So why move something about space there?

GD is a catch-basin for inane topics and inane conversations, Like the grease trap under your kitchen sink.

Sure it gets tinfoily here, but meh, I get a kick out of that.

We'll agree to disagree. Politics and religion, particularly the way they'er discussed at the org, could not be more different than science. Many of the science threads at the org are very lighthearded and fun. The P&R threads, not so much. In fact, there are many other GD threads that belong in P&R more than the science threads.

I'm going to say again, science is not politics or religion. It's messed up that this is where all these threads end up (this one may have been started here, not sure). Maybe we need a sciences forum. Or maybe they should just be left to live in General Discussion. Like, would a moderator move my Puffin Cam thread to P&R? No. So why move something about space there?

Steps off rickety ass soap box.

I kind of understood that P&R was the more serious, less jokey place, so this kinds of thread should fit here. Besides who can get into all the "you're stoopid, no you're stoopid" arguements talking about space and science.

I'm going to say again, science is not politics or religion. It's messed up that this is where all these threads end up (this one may have been started here, not sure). Maybe we need a sciences forum. Or maybe they should just be left to live in General Discussion. Like, would a moderator move my Puffin Cam thread to P&R? No. So why move something about space there?

Steps off rickety ass soap box.

I kind of understood that P&R was the more serious, less jokey place, so this kinds of thread should fit here. Besides who can get into all the "you're stoopid, no you're stoopid" arguements talking about space and science.

I kind of understood that P&R was the more serious, less jokey place, so this kinds of thread should fit here. Besides who can get into all the "you're stoopid, no you're stoopid" arguements talking about space and science.

Question: Where do we consider our solar system to end; Pluto's orbit? Solar apex?

Answer: The solar system may be broadly defined as consisting of all those objects that are ultimately governed by the gravitational field of the Sun. In addition to the planets, moons, asteroids and dust of the planetary system, it includes the distant bodies of the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud, the later extending perhaps as far as 50,000 astronomical units (1 AU = about 93 million miles). The gravitational influence of the Sun may extend as far as 2 light years. (From "Solar System", James H. Shirley, in Encyclopedia of Planetary Science).

That said, Pluto (and sometimes Neptune) is the most distant planet in our Planetary System. The Voyagers passed the orbit of Neptune (which was furthest at the time) in August 1989. Neither flew by Pluto, which was elsewhere in its orbit at the time.

Another concept is the heliosphere, which is a bubble around the Sun created by the outward flow of the solar wind from the sun and the opposing inward flow of the interstellar wind. That heliosphere is the region influenced by the dynamic properties of the sun that are carried in the solar wind - such as magnetic fields, energetic particles, solar wind plasma, etc. We don't know how big the heliosphere is and that is something the Voyagers could help us define. At the point where the two winds meet, a shock is created and this termination shock would mark the beginning of the heliopause, where the two winds interact. Voyager 1 could encounter the termination shock in the next 2-3 years. Beyond the heliopause is interstellar space. It is possible that one of the Voyagers could enter into interstellar space before 2020 when we will no longer have enough electrical energy to power the instruments.

I was under the impression that the Voyagers were suppose to confirm the existance of the Oort Cloud, but it looks like by the time they get through the Kuiper Belt they won't be sending signals anymore. Maybe I got it mixed up with another satellite on it's way out there.

I was under the impression that the Voyagers were suppose to confirm the existance of the Oort Cloud, but it looks like by the time they get through the Kuiper Belt they won't be sending signals anymore. Maybe I got it mixed up with another satellite on it's way out there.

The ort cloud will take thousands of years to reach.

It's at the edge of the solar system which is almost a light year out--that's thousands of years of travelling.

I was under the impression that the Voyagers were suppose to confirm the existance of the Oort Cloud, but it looks like by the time they get through the Kuiper Belt they won't be sending signals anymore. Maybe I got it mixed up with another satellite on it's way out there.

The ort cloud will take thousands of years to reach.

It's at the edge of the solar system which is almost a light year out--that's thousands of years of travelling.

Yeah I get that, I was just wondering if a satellite reaching the Kuiper Belt might be able to confirm it's existance, granted the objects in it are probably relatively small. "They" are talking about verifying the theorectical brown drawf that may be twining our Sun, it's suppose to be located within or near the Oort cloud, so I wasn't sure if it was the Voyager satellites that would be able to send back data.